Murine monoclonal antibodies are used in diagnosis of human disease, and in solving basic biological research problems. These reagents are also used in clinical trials as therapeutics for both acute and chronic human diseases, including leukemias, lymphomas, solid tumors (e.g., colon, breast, hepatic), AIDS and autoimmune diseases.
Mouse/human chimeric antibodies have been created, and shown to exhibit the binding characteristics of the parental mouse antibody, and effector functions associated with the human constant region. See e.g., Cabilly et al., U.S. Pat. No. 4,816,567; Shoemaker et al., U.S. Pat. No. 4,978,745; Beavers et al., U.S. Pat. No. 4,975,369; and Boss et al., U.S. Pat. No. 4,816,397 all of which are incorporated by reference herein. Generally, these chimeric antibodies are constructed by preparing a genomic gene library from DNA extracted from pre-existing murine hybridomas. Nishimura et al., 47 Cancer Research 999, 1987. The library is then screened for variable region genes from both heavy and light chains exhibiting the correct antibody fragment rearrangement patterns. The cloned variable region genes are then ligated into an expression vector containing cloned cassettes of the appropriate heavy or light chain human constant region gene. The chimeric genes are then expressed in a cell line of choice, usually a murine myeloma line.
Such chimeric antibodies have been used in human therapy. Antibodies to these chimeric antibodies, however, have been produced by the human recipient in a number of cases. Such anti-chimeric antibody antibodies are detrimental to continued therapy with the chimeric antibody.
Erlich et al., 34 Clinical Chemistry 1681, 1988, Erlich et al., 7 Hybridoma 385, 1988, Erlich et al., 6 Hybridoma 151, 1987, and Erlich et al., 1 Human Antibody Hybridomas 23, 1990 (not admitted to be prior art to the present application) state that human monoclonal antibodies are expected to be an improvement over mouse monoclonal antibodies for in vivo human therapy. They also postulate that non-human primate antibodies, e.g., chimpanzee monoclonal antibodies, to be tolerated in humans because they are structurally similar to human antibodies. Because human antibodies are non-immunogenic in Rhesus monkeys (i.e., do not induce an antibody response), they predict that primate antibodies will be non-immunogenic in humans. They indicate that the testing of antibodies in humans is unnecessary if a primate antibody has a constant region structure identical to that of a human immunoglobulin or, at least, a structure no more different from a human immunoglobulin than the different human antibodies differ from each other. Thus, they suggest that chimpanzee antibodies may be useful in human therapy.